Back to Moscow (5 page)

We lived in the small flat I was renting in Fokke Simonszstraat, a central Amsterdam street with no canal, on the third floor of an old house with narrow stairs that, like many buildings in the
city, was tilted to one side. At home you could feel that the floor wasn’t entirely level, that there was a slight slope from the couch to the TV, and this, I think, might have contributed to
the sense of instability I suffered from at the time.

It was Katya who introduced me to Russian thought. Not to philosophers or great writers – although she’d read them all in school – but to the way Russians look at life. She
also taught me my first Russian words. You are such a babnik, she’d say, every time she caught me looking at other women. A babnik, she explained to me, was a man who liked women and was
liked by women. Katya had a scary sixth sense for these things and, whenever we both walked into a student party or a bar, she would immediately spot the girl I was going to feel attracted to, even
before I’d seen her.

I also learned many practicalities from Katya. She patiently instructed me on the endless medicinal applications of vodka; headaches, indigestion, insomnia – there was nothing a bit of
good old vodka could not cure. Katya also used the magic liquor as stain remover, shoe polish – anything, really. Katya rubbed vodka on her forehead and tummy for a couple of days each month
– the most effective method, she maintained, to relieve her atrocious menstrual pains.

With her spectacular beauty and her unique way of seeing the world, Katya embodied the promise of a vast cultural universe to be discovered. It was only after she’d gone from my life and
I’d started my research in Moscow that I realised Katya must have been my first maternal whore. The maternal whore is a concept I kind of came up with later in my research, a recurring female
character in Russian literature: a beautiful woman who uses her natural, God-given wisdom to nurture her man, to instruct him in the ways of life, without demanding a conventional commitment in
return. Think of Raskolnikov’s Sonya in
Crime and Punishment
– except, of course, Sonya was also an actual whore.

So it was Katya who showed me the light. She was the prophet of my new faith, the beacon of my new world. For that, I’m grateful. Without Katya, Russia would have remained nothing more
than a frozen far-off land that belonged to Cold War films and dusty history books.

C
HOOSE ANY STREET IN
Moscow. Stand at the kerb. Raise your arm. In a few seconds you have two or three cars at the side of the road offering their
services. Set the price. A hundred, a hundred and fifty rubles, depends on the distance to be covered, the time of day, how shitty the car is. A ten-minute drive and you are in, say, Kitaisky
Lyotchik. The Chinese Pilot.

The Lyotchik is a popular bar, at least among students and the arty crowd. They often host performances and live music. Great place to start the night. But if for some reason it’s not
happening in the Lyotchik you all have a couple of drinks, maybe accompanied by a plate of chicken wings, take a piss, walk out and flag another car, perhaps a Volga this time, that will take you
to Karma Bar.

You want to hit Karma just before midnight, when the dyevs are drunk but not taken. If you are lucky, the Volga’s radio is playing old soviet songs, Vysotsky or Okudzhava, but most often
it will be blasting out trashy Russian pop, the kind of synthesiser sound abandoned by the West in the mid-1980s.

Colin is in the front seat talking to the driver.

Colin says, it’s from taxi drivers you learn about the real Moscow. Drivers are typically well-educated men – engineers, doctors, professors – whose jobs have become
superfluous in the new Russia, and who need the extra cash to make ends meet. Often, the driver will admire Colin’s proficiency in Russian and his knowledge of local customs – surprised
and pleased to hear he’s American – and, if we’ve grabbed the car after a few drinks, Colin and the driver often end up singing Russian songs, reciting poetry or telling anekdots,
which are the equivalent of Western jokes but without a funny punch line.

Stepanov, Diego and I sit in the back seat. The car drops us outside Karma and we add a fifty-ruble tip to the agreed price. The driver wishes us a good night and we walk into the club.

Two hours in Karma. That’s four rounds of drinks. Colin doesn’t like wasting time. With the first drink in his hand, and while the rest of us stand at the bar, he carries out a
complete inspection of the premises, scanning, taking mental notes. Then he returns and says, ‘Guys, let’s move to the back of the dance floor, between the Buddha and the small bar.
That’s the spot tonight.’

We leave Karma and take another car, this one a zhiguli with a cracked windscreen and a chatty Georgian driver. Now we have Oksana and Irina squeezed into the back seat. Colin’s gone
– it happens sometimes, a brother leaves the group, only to be met hours later for breakfast at Starlite Diner or the American Bar and Grill. Oksana is clearly Stepanov’s, but, at this
point of the night, Irina remains up for grabs.

Our nights begin at Stepanov’s place, a high-ceilinged apartment on a side street off the Old Arbat, lavishly decorated in the late soviet style: piano in the living
room, tapestries on the walls, a hand-coloured portrait of Brezhnev – chest covered in military medals. The tapestry above the couch depicts a popular Russian painting I’ve seen in one
of my language books – three knights on horses, wearing pointy metal helmets. The knight in the middle, seemingly the leader, is riding a black horse, his hand shielding his eyes, gazing into
the horizon.

Stepanov’s flat is his grandfather’s flat. Stepanov’s grandfather had been important in the Communist party, a proud member of the nomenklatura, Stepanov tells us, but he
passed away in the early 1990s, together with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. We often toast in his honour because, Stepanov says, his grandfather remains our host. At Stepanov’s
place we do vodka shots, play old vinyl records, decide which clubs to visit, talk shit.

To make sure we are not missing out on the best party, Colin makes us spend a great part of the night on the road, moving across the city, following rumours, searching for the finest crowd.
It’s an endless journey, from club to club to bar to café, back to a club, exploring the hundreds of establishments that stay open all night, buying drinks, talking to dyevs,
collecting phone numbers.

Colin says, in Moscow you don’t hunt, you gather.

The problem comes at the end of the night. Visitors are not allowed into the university residence, so, if it turns out to be a good night and a girl I’ve met in a club wants to come home
for a cup of tea, I have to take her to Stepanov’s place, where we’ll spend the rest of the night on his couch, next to the grandfather’s piano, under the strict vigilance of
comrade Brezhnev.

Stepanov says, you’re welcome to fuck anyone in my grandfather’s flat.

But it’s not ideal. Next morning I’ll have to wake up early, walk the girl to the ring road, put her in a car before I take the long metro ride to Universitet for my three-hour
language class.

Exhausting.

I
T WAS
K
ATYA WHO
suggested that I should add Moscow to my application form. ‘You’ll increase your chances,’
she said. ‘Nobody wants to go to Russia. People are scared, with all these awful things they show on the news all the time. There’ll be no competition.’

I didn’t particularly care about academic life. But I was about to finish my degree in languages and literature and I didn’t know what to do next. A friend told me that a PhD was
nothing more than the usual academic assignment, just with a very long deadline. It sounded like something I could do.

Moscow. Why not. After all, I had taken an interest in Russian books. During my studies I’d read Dostoyevsky, Gogol and even a couple of chapters of
War and Peace
. Then, for my
birthday, Katya had bought me an old English edition of selected short stories by Chekhov – the only book I later took to Moscow – and for a couple of weeks we had read the stories to
each other in bed.

As Katya had predicted – and despite my mediocre grades – a few weeks after sending in my application I found myself facing a panel in the literature department of the University of
Amsterdam. It was never really explained to me why I wasn’t being considered for other universities which were top of my list – when they had asked me to submit a developed research
proposal, I was told it was Russia or nothing.

At the interview I was invited to elucidate how my proposed research topic – the evolution of the female character in Russian literature – would contribute to the West’s
understanding of modern Russia. Following Katya’s advice, I’d taken two shots of vodka before the interview – a trick Russians always use to speak in public, she’d told me.
I felt confident and eloquent. I will certainly define the research topic further, sir, of course I think there is room for a fresh look at the subject, yes, a twenty-first-century view of Russian
literature. I’m planning to expand my sources, indeed, will definitely take into account these latest gender-sensitive theories you mention, madam, I mean professor, I will use them all.
Russian language? Da, da, I’m looking forward to learning Russian, certainly. I would be immensely grateful, I said at the end – trying to conclude my interview as solemnly as I could
– if I were awarded this prestigious scholarship to study at MGU, the famous Moscow State University.

By the time I was offered the scholarship, another few weeks after the interview, I had no reason to stay in Amsterdam. In fact, I was desperate to get out.

All friendly break-ups are alike; each painful break-up is painful in its own way. Katya certainly made sure of that. At first I was shocked, the entire thing had caught me off
guard. The days passed and I saw no improvement in my heart’s condition. I couldn’t understand where the pain was coming from. Had I really cared that much about her? Then, in the
middle of this unexplored emotional territory, confused and disoriented as I was, I received The Letter. Dear applicant, we have the pleasure of informing you that, and so on.

It was only later, when I read
Nest of the Gentry
, that I recognised the dramatic potential of my situation. In Turgenev’s book, Lavretsky, too, finds himself in similar
circumstances and ends up fleeing to Russia looking for solace. Of course, now, when I look back, I wouldn’t dare compare my Katya to Varvara Pavlovna. Despite her glamour and beauty, Katya
lacked the old-school refinement of Turgenev’s femme fatale.

So it was that, with a few warm clothes, a Russian–English dictionary and my copy of Chekhov, I left Amsterdam for good. Sitting on an Aeroflot plane bound for Sheremetyevo, ready to start
my post-Katya life, I found myself for the first time totally surrounded by real Russians. They looked like decent, honest people. I was glad to hear the unsmiling air hostess addressing me in
Russian, obviously mistaking me for one of her own. Fish or meat? I’d been studying the language for a few weeks with a book Katya had bought me, but the air hostess’s question –
which, granted, she’d posed while holding two trays of warm aeroplane food in her hands – was my first successful encounter with the Russian language in a non-textbook context.

My confidence boosted, I began to look forward to my life in Moscow, my self-imposed exile, where I’d be enjoying, I thought, a rich academic and intellectual life. In the mental rendition
of this new chapter, I saw myself sitting for hours in the library, meeting other students, reading profound books. If I managed to make the right acquaintances, perhaps I’d also be invited
to a real dacha, where I’d drink endless cups of tea from an authentic samovar, and I’d discuss the meaning of life with bearded intellectuals who looked like Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy. A
peaceful life of study and contemplation, I thought, as I glanced through the window and observed our plane gliding above the clouds towards a vast darkening horizon.

I
WAS TOLD INTERNATIONAL
students had been assigned language classes in the morning so that we could spend our afternoons researching in the library and
meeting our supervisors. I wasn’t quite keeping up with this arrangement.

Most days, after my language class with Nadezhda Nikolaevna, I would grab lunch at the main stolovaya with Diego, then walk back to my room in Sektor E to catch a couple of hours’ sleep.
In the afternoons I would typically take the metro to the centre, where I would have arranged to meet a dyev on the platform of some monumental metro station.

Walking around the streets of the centre, dyevs often insisted on holding hands and, as uncomfortable as this made me feel, I tried to oblige for as long as I could. They would take me to Red
Square and the Old Arbat and other touristy places that I had, by now, visited several times. But I appreciated their efforts, and I would follow them obediently, showing interest, asking
questions, saying how very interesno everything was. These walks were good for my Russian and, if the dyev I was meeting didn’t live with her family, after two or three encounters she would
invite me over to her place for a cup of tea.

By mid-December, three months into my stay, I started to worry about my academic research. I could sense that Lyudmila Aleksandrovna, who I was meeting once a week to discuss my project, was
disappointed by my performance.

‘Martin, you are a very slow reader,’ she said once, while we were drinking tea and discussing Gogol in her office. She had a point, I thought, as I reclined cautiously on the wobbly
chair, careful not to spill any tea. I had read some of the articles she’d recommended. Three, perhaps two, from a list of twelve. I told her it was hard for me to read faster, as most of the
articles were in Russian. This was not entirely untrue.

On another occasion, Lyudmila Aleksandrovna mentioned how this other research student she was supervising, a Pole or a Czech, was making so much progress. ‘He is so dedicated, such a hard
worker,’ she said.